'School Chest' raises funds, and awareness

Deerfield High School's fundraiser sets dollar record to fund lung cancer research

January 30, 2013|By Denys Bucksten, Special to the Tribune

Deerfield High School Idol show attendees "vote" with dollars between competition rounds at the school auditorium. (Handout)

From the contents of a little sister's piggy bank to $2,000 collected online, Deerfield High School's annual fundraiser, School Chest, pulled in a record $135,393 in 2012.

The proceeds, which in recent years have ranged from $87,000 to $98,000, will be donated to LUNGevity Foundation, a nonprofit working to raise awareness and funds for lung cancer research.

The Chicago-based foundation, formed in 2001, has very personal ties to the school and the Deerfield community. LUNGevity's website, lungevity.org, displays photos of seven founders: six are women, five of whom have died from the disease. They include DHS grad Gayle Levy and Melissa Zagon, a young Deerfield mother.

LUNGevity board member and Deerfield resident Sue Bersh, whose close friend, Elyse Bernstein, died of lung cancer four years ago, said, "Everyone knows someone who has died of lung cancer, but not everyone knows it's the number one (cancer) killer and the least funded by our government. But these high school kids took this cause and made it their own."

DHS' School Chest is a student-council initiative, chaired in 2012 by juniors Graham Ambrose and Samantha "Sam" Gottstein. They began meeting regularly last spring to search some 50 possible beneficiaries for the students' fundraising. They whittled that down to five for student council consideration, with just two being sent to the student body for a vote.

Organizers say School Chest was driven by volunteers of all ages, with strong utilization of mobile phones and social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The drive kicked off Nov. 28 and included home-room collection boxes, bake sales, a 5K run/walk, a dinner and silent auction and a DHS Idol talent show that saw 20 acts play to a nearly packed auditorium. The Idol "voting" was done via donations dropped into collection boxes during 5-minute breaks.

DHS teacher and student council adviser Ryan Rockaitis said setting a record for donations was never the goal.

"I think from the start everybody just felt the connection to the charity," he said. "I tried to encourage the students not to focus on any special amount, especially with the economy the way it's been the last few years.

"But this year especially, there were more people involved, not just from the student council or the school, but from the community at large. A big part of the fundraiser was getting real facts out to people about lung cancer. As this year showed, the numbers took care of themselves," Rockaitis said.

Gottstein said the drive was much more than dusting off some conventional techniques of fundraising, talking points and voting procedures — spreading the message about lung cancer was of paramount importance.

"It wasn't us going home and asking our parents for a big check for our charity," she said. "We wanted people to get a good understanding of the basis of the disease. Lung cancer is not just a result of people smoking. On our big benefit dinner night there were a lot of parents walking away thinking, 'Wow, I really didn't know about this (disease).'"